New one-and-done therapy can help curb severe COVID-19 infection: Canadian-led study
CTV
A Canadian-led study of a new potential antiviral therapy shows a single dose can help cut the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19.
Just one injection of an antiviral drug, given early in a COVID-19 infection, offers significant protection in keeping people, even those at high risk, out of the hospital and alive, a new study says.
The drug, peg-interferon lambda, was tested in nearly 2,000 people—both those vaccinated and unvaccinated—with COVID-19 in Canada and Brazil.
Researchers found that when vaccinated patients received a single dose by injection, they were 51 per cent less likely to end up in hospital or die when compared to people given a placebo. Among patients who weren't vaccinated, the effect was even greater, with 89 per cent fewer hospitalizations and deaths.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine's website on Wednesday.
"The way that this therapy works is it's stimulating the body's own immune system to clear the virus," said Dr. Jordan Feld, study co-author and a senior scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute at University Health Network.
The effect of the treatment, according to the study, was even more striking in people who got the drug within three days of the start of their symptoms. The experimental therapy was also effective across several different variants, including Omicron.
Interferon is normally produced by the body in response to a viral infection. Interferon lambda specifically targets tissue in the lungs.
